Thomas Paine's Common Sense background info

1. Background
The man above does not look angry. To us, he projects the typical figure of a “Founding
Father” — composed, elite, and empowered. And to us his famous essays are awash in
powdered-wig prose. But the portrait and the prose belie the reality. Thomas Paine was a
firebrand, and his most influential essay — Common Sense — was a fevered no-holds-
barred call for independence. He is credited with turning the tide of public opinion at a
crucial juncture, convincing many Americans that war for independence was the only
option to take, and they had to take it now, or else. Thomas Paine’s Common Sense – A
Close Reading Guide from America in Class 2 Common Sense appeared as a pamphlet
for sale in Philadelphia on January 10, 1776, and, as we say today, it went viral. The first
printing sold out in two weeks and over 250,000 copies were sold throughout America
and Europe. It is estimated that one half of Americans read the pamphlet or heard it read
aloud in public. General Washington ordered it read to his troops. Within weeks, it
seemed, reconciliation with Britain had gone from an honorable goal to a cowardly
betrayal, while independence became the rallying cry of united Patriots. How did Paine
achieve this?
1. Timing
Over a year elapsed between the outbreak of armed conflict and the Declaration of
Independence. During these fifteen months, many bemoaned the reluctance of Americans
to renounce their ties with Britain despite the escalating warfare around them. “When we
are no longer fascinated with the Idea of a speedy Reconciliation,” wrote Benjamin
Franklin in mid-1775, “we shall exert ourselves to some purpose. Till then Things will be
done by Halves.” In addition, there remained much discord among the colonies about
their shared future. “Some timid minds are terrified at the word independence,” wrote
Elbridge Gerry in March 1776, referring to the colonial legislatures. “America has gone
such lengths she cannot recede, and I am convinced a few weeks or months at furthest
will convince her of the fact, but the fruit must have time to ripen in some of the other
Colonies.” In this environment, Common Sense appeared like a “meteor,” wrote John

2. Adams, and propelled many to support independence. Many noted it at the time with
amazement.
“Sometime past the idea [of independence] would have struck me with horror. I now see no
alternative…Can any virtuous and brave American hesitate one moment in the choice?” –The
Pennsylvania Evening Post, 13 February 1776
“We were blind, but on reading these enlightening works the scales have fallen from our eyes….
The doctrine of Independence hath been in times past greatly disgustful; we abhorred the
principle. It is now become our delightful theme and commands our purest affections. We revere
the author and highly prize and admire his works.” –The New-London [Connecticut] Gazette,
22 March 1776
2. Message What made Common Sense so esteemed and “enlightening?” Some argue
that Common Sense said nothing new, that it simply put the call-to-war in fiery street
language that rallied the common people. But this simplifies Paine’s accomplishment. He
did have a new message in Common Sense — an ultimatum. Give up reconciliation
now, or forever lose the chance for independence. If we fail to act, we’re self-deceiving
cowards condemning our children to tyranny and cheating the world of a beacon of
liberty. It is our calling to model self-actualized nationhood for the world. “The cause of
America is in a great measure the cause of all mankind.” Paine divided Common Sense
into four sections with deceptively mundane titles, mimicking the erudite political
pamphlets of the day. But his essay did not offer the same-old-same-old treatise on
British heritage and American rights. Here’s what he says in Common Sense:
Introduction:
The ideas I present here are so new that many people will reject them. Readers must clear
their minds of long-held notions, apply common sense, and adopt the cause of America as
the “cause of all mankind.” How we respond to tyranny today will matter for all time.
Section One:
The English government you worship? It’s a sham. Man may need government to protect
him from his flawed nature, but that doesn’t mean he must suffocate under brute tyranny.
Just as you would cut ties with abusive parents, you must break from Britain.
Section Two:
The monarchy you revere? It’s not our protector; it’s our enemy. It doesn’t care about us;
it cares about Britain’s wealth. It has brought misery to people all over the world. And the
very idea of monarchy is absurd. Why should someone rule over us simply because he (or
she) is someone’s child? So evil is monarchy by its very nature that God condemns it in
the Bible.
Section Three:
Our crisis today? It’s folly to think we should maintain loyalty to a distant tyrant. It’s
self-sabotage to pursue reconciliation. For us, right here, right now, reconciliation means
ruin. America must separate from Britain. We can’t go back to the cozy days before the
Stamp Act. You know that’s true; it’s time to admit it. For heaven’s sake, we’re already
at war!
Section Four:
Can we win this war? Absolutely! Ignore the naysayers who tremble at the thought of
British might. Let’s build a Continental Navy as we have built our Continental Army. Let

3. us declare independence. If we delay, it will be that much harder to win. I know the
prospect is daunting, but the prospect of inaction is terrifying. A month later, in his
appendix to the third edition, Paine escalated his appeal to a utopian fervor. “We have it
in our power to begin the world over again,” he insisted. “The birthday of a new world is
at hand.”
3. Rhetoric.
“It is necessary to be bold,” wrote Paine years later on his rhetorical power. “Some
people can be reasoned into sense, and others must be shocked into it. Say a bold thing
that will stagger them, and they will begin to think.” Keep this idea front and center as
you study Common Sense. As an experienced essayist and a recent English immigrant
with his own deep resentments against Britain, Paine was the right man at the right time
to galvanize public opinion. He “understood better than anyone else in America,”
explains literary scholar Robert Ferguson, “that ‘style and manner of thinking’ might
dictate the difficult shift from loyalty to rebellion.” Before Paine, the language of
political essays had been moderate. Educated men wrote civilly for publication and kept
their fury for private letters and diaries. Then came Paine, cursing Britain as an “open
enemy,” denouncing George III as the “Royal Brute of England,” and damning
reconciliation as “truly farcical” and “a fallacious dream.” To think otherwise, he
charged, was “absurd,” “unmanly,” and “repugnant to reason.” Paine knew what he was
doing: the pen was his weapon, and words his ammunition. He argued with ideas while
convincing with raw emotion. “The point to remember,” writes Ferguson, “is that Paine’s
natural and intended audience is the American mob…. He uses anger, the natural emotion
of the mob, to let the most active groups find themselves in the general will of a
republican citizenry.” What if Paine had written the Declaration of Independence with the
same hard-driving rhetoric?
AS JEFFERSON WROTE IT:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by
their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit
of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving
their just powers from the consent of the Thomas Paine’s Common Sense – A Close Reading
Guide from America in Class 4 governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes
destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new
Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as
to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.
IF PAINE HAD WRITTEN IT:
NO man can deny, without abandoning his God-given ability to reason, that all men enter into
existence as equals. No matter how lowly or majestic their origins, they enter life with three God-
given RIGHTS — the right to live, to right to live free, and the right to live happily (or, at the
least, to pursue Happiness on earth). Who would choose existence on any other terms? So
treasured are these rights that man created government to protect them. So treasured are they
that man is duty-bound to destroy any government that crushes them — and start anew as men
worthy of the title of FREE MEN. This is the plain truth, impossible to refute.